Parents

My parents were married for twenty- seven years, my father having given my mother her one ring when she was nineteen, stating clearly that it was he who was marrying her. Both essentially private people, over time they came to rely on each other for all social and intellectual interaction. They had hardly any mutual friends that they spent time with. My mother had friends from graduate school and her library that she saw fairly regularly, but as far as we could tell, my Dad didn’t really call anyone a friend. They were very close, but it was hard to judge as I never saw them exchange more than a chaste kiss and I never actually saw them sit down and have long discussions. Perhaps they saved that for their bedroom.
Looking back now, I’m not even sure they shared many common interests. My father loved to sail; my mother tolerated it for his sake. My father enjoyed being outside and active; my mother preferred to sit on the couch and read, coffee cup in hand. While I’m not sure how much deeply personal stuff my father shared with my mother, he seemed to know very little accurate information about her. Which was so odd to me in the context of my own relationship. I guess the young always think they know better even as they constantly reinvent the wheel.